The Unlikely Hero: Lessons from England's 1966 World Cup
Sixty years on from Wembley, the lesson of 1966 still hangs over every England squad sheet: football’s biggest stages have a habit of elevating the unlikely man.
Back then it was Geoff Hurst, a striker who began the tournament behind Jimmy Greaves, the darling of English football and the automatic pick through the middle. Greaves was the phenomenon, the finisher people built their dream XIs around. Hurst was the understudy, waiting, hoping, staying sharp.
Then came the cruel twist that changes careers and rewrites history. Greaves suffered an injury. Sir Alf Ramsey turned to Hurst. The West Ham forward grabbed his chance and never let go, thundering his way into folklore with a hat-trick against West Germany at Wembley Stadium as England finally lifted the World Cup on home soil. Fans poured onto the pitch before it really was “all over”, and Hurst’s name was carved into the game’s mythology.
No England side has matched that feat since. Yet the story still matters, not as nostalgia but as a warning: never assume you know who the hero will be.
That is the thread Michael Owen pulls on when he looks at Kobbie Mainoo’s situation and the way Gareth Southgate’s side have stumbled at times through a tournament they were expected to dominate. England have often lacked a measure of control in midfield, the kind of calm, intelligent presence Mainoo offers, but the teenager has not always been front and centre.
Asked whether he feels for the youngster, Owen – speaking to GOAL in his role as UK ambassador for Casino.org – didn’t hesitate.
“I do a little bit, because I think he's definitely got the ability to play a role in the World Cup. And who knows? Things change, you get unlikely heroes.”
The comparison is obvious to him. England’s greatest footballing moment was shaped not by the superstar everyone assumed would define it, but by the man few expected to start.
“Our greatest moment ever in this country, winning the World Cup, who would have thought Geoff Hurst would have been playing? Jimmy Greaves was the best thing since sliced bread. My dad just raves about Jimmy Greaves. When anyone's talking about the best England XI and things like that, my dad's like, ‘Jimmy Greaves’ straight away. He was insanely good. Now, things happen, and all of a sudden, Geoff Hurst plays, and look what happens.”
That is the space Owen sees for Mainoo: not a guaranteed starter, not the headline act, but a potential turning point waiting on the bench. A player who must stay alert, stay ready, because tournaments bend in strange directions.
“There will be, or there could be, a surprise. And it could be Mainoo, you can't switch off.”
Owen’s wider point is blunt. For all the noise around England’s path, the level of opposition so far should not flatter them. He believes an early exit would have demanded serious scrutiny.
“Really, what we've done so far, if we had been knocked out, there would have been a huge inquest. I mean, nobody should be really in our league.”
He bristles at the way some fixtures have been framed.
“We've built it up as if Mexico was the hardest game of all time, but come on. Norway, if we played Norway at a neutral ground, let's say we play Norway in Spain tomorrow, people would expect us to beat them two or 3-0. So when you look back, we should be beating every single team.”
Now comes the shift. The tune changes. The margin for error shrinks.
“This [Argentina] is now the first game, this is a proper game, this is one that is a toss of a coin, this is one that's going to challenge us. But everything so far has been what you would expect from England, surely.”
This is where tournaments are really won: in the grind of knockout football, where one tackle, one touch, one brave selection can tilt a World Cup on its axis. It is the realm of the unexpected name and the sudden star.
“We will see,” Owen says, before circling back to the idea that has defined England’s past and might yet shape its future. “But if we're going to win it, there are going to be so many twists and turns and so many heroes that we won't even be thinking at the moment. And Mainoo could be one of them.”
Sixty years after Hurst stepped out of the shadows, England may again need a player nobody planned the story around. The question now is whether Southgate is willing to trust that history has room for one more unlikely hero.
